It was very, very close, but between the wrong two players. Lee should have finished second, not Jones.

i would'vehad a very tough time choosing between lee and pujols. i probably would've gone with lee.

i cared about this before the birds shit the bed.... again

good for pujols... he'll probably win a few more along the way... but these awards really dont mean shit about now

Pujols, Lee, and Jones would be admirable MVP's any year. Compared to each other in 2005 Pujols is the clear winner, with Lee and Jones a very close second, and between Lee and Jones I give Lee a microscopic nod, if only for Jones' putrid overall BA (for an MVP candidate) and terrible RISP BA (for anybody).

how is pujols the clear winner? if anything, lee has a slight nod in batting stats, and he's a better fielder.

i'd also like to know this.

there is no clear winner in my mind. i just want to know how jones ended up second and lee 3rd...

shouldve been a close race between pujols and lee.

albert............. top 5 player of all time when he is all done with his career, congrats.

Because the Cardinals were racked with injuries all season and his consistency may have helped them win the division, whereas the Cubs sucked even with Lee having a monster season. That's the argument anyway.

yea, i know that's the argument; it just doesn't make any sense to me. lee was the better player, i can't fault him for being on a bad team.

He wasn't really that much better. If you go down the line and compare them line by line, it's pretty goddamn close.

Games:
Lee 158
Pujols 161

AB:
Lee 594
Pujols 591

Runs:
Lee 120
Pujols 129

Hits:
Lee 199
Pujols 195

Doubles:
Lee 50
Pujols 38

Triples:
Lee 3
Pujols 2

HR:
Lee 46
Pujols 41

RBI:
Lee 107
Pujols 117

Walks
Lee 88
Pujols 97

Strikeouts
Lee 109
Pujols 65

SB
Lee 15
Pujols 16

OPS:
Lee 1.080
Pujols 1.039


The only significant differences are doubles and strikeouts. We're not talking a lot of difference in overall performance.
Yes Lee is better defensively, but not so much better that it's CLEAR that he had the better season. Pujols is no slouch at 1b.

i'm in no way saying lee is a clear choice, but before it was said pujols was the clear choice, and that's not correct, imo.

if anything, this was a much tighter race than in the AL. very tough to pick. i was just shocked that jones got so much talk, and lee was forgotten.

It'd be scary to know what Lee's numbers would be if he was on a team that didn't have Neifi or Patterson in front of him, neither of whom reached .300 OBP.

Cardinals made the playoffs that's WHY HE WAS THE CLEAR CHOICE. So stop wondering "why"...... (over lee)

END OF DISCUSSION

why the hate for Jones?

The best fielder by leaps and bounds over the 3. One of the best center field gloves of all time and he carried the team for the majority of the season, he's just not a particularly good average hitter.

It should also be known that no hometown votes were counted, AJC press if for bidden to vote in those things even though they have credentials, so it was the rest of the country that voted Jones 2nd.

i agree...jones carried that team.

i would have voted for jones

I think it must come down to reputation to an extent also. All season there was more hype about Pujols and Jones, they're bigger headline grabbers than Lee, and I think this has a lot to do with it. When not sure of who to vote for many voters probably went for the bigger name. It's probably for this reason that Bonds has beat out Pujols in the past.

Are you kidding me? People were talking triple crown and .400 for Lee for the first half of the season! He had all the hype you could ask for

No. I think Pujols and Jones have been big names in the game for a few years, with reputations to match. I wouldn't put Lee in that same category

a very specious argument.

if you compare their individual performances, it's clear Jones carried his team less than Lee carried his own, but because Jones's team was better than Lee's team, it gives the illusion that Jones "carried" the team because he was the most notable performer on a pretty good team that happened to have some big injuries. Put another way, if Lee (or Pujols) had been on the Braves and Jones had been on the Cubs, it's clear that the Braves would have been better and the Cubs (or Cards) would have been worse.

Of course, this is all speaking to how the MVP should be determined, not to how it is determined, where the voters take into account asinine variables such as RBI and "clutch".
To me, Lee was the best player this year by a nose over Pujols, with Jones a distant, distant third.